WI23-03: Social Security Administration’s Growing Interest in the Child Tax Credit and Other Child Driven Income Support Programs

The proposed project will use the March 2022 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to assess distributional differences related to income and poverty, racial differences, and geographical differences among Social Security program beneficiaries with children who report Child Tax Credit (CTC) , Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), public housing, and/or Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) receipt for 2021, compared to those who appear eligible for, but who did not participate, in these programs. This project builds on the finding from prior work that as many as half of the Social Security program participants living with children under age 18, newly eligible to receive the expanded CTC in 2021, did not benefit from that expansion. The project will estimate the number of eligible non-participants in these programs, especially “grandfamilies” where Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) recipients are raising their grandchildren, and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries with eligible children who are not benefitting from the CTC and other child related benefit programs beyond Social Security administered programs alone.